A Tangible Difference
by Neva
Summary: But she viewed these things as unrelated events, unconnected... and definitely not part of her reality. That was her first mistake." The emergence of movieverse Kitty's powers and the beginning of her life at Xavier's.


A/N: This fic takes place before and during the events of X1. I wrote it mostly because I love originfics... and although I've always enjoyed writing about Kitty Pryde, I've always focused on her in _Evolution_ fanfic more as one half of my favorite ship, and I'm not going to even _try_ to encompass everything she's been through in the original comics. Finally, I was sick of the innumerable intolerant/ignorant/overly frightened human parents, both in canon and elsewhere.  
  
Disclaimer: The X-Men and all Marvel characters belong to, well, Marvel. 20th Century Fox owns the movies.  
  
Dedication: To Minisinoo, the heart and soul of the fandom, and to all the other writers who have influenced my fiction in some way or another.  
  
  
Prologue  
  
The first time Kitty Pryde saw a mutant, it wasn't in the mirror.  
  
She had known they _existed_, of course, in the same way she knew that certain giant reptiles existed, although she'd never seen one in real life, not even in zoos, which she hated. She suspected, at age twelve, that if she ever _did_ meet a mutant, she'd react with the same awe, curiosity, and not inconsiderable fear which which she would have if a family of crocodiles materialized in her peaceful Chicago suburb. She'd heard the stories, of course she had; she'd seen countless infomercials on TV -- meant to frightened parents -- and she'd even heard about the opinions of scientists who thought that the genetic plague needed to be wiped out once and for all. But she viewed these things as unrelated events, unconnected, not part of a pattern or the beginnings of an unstoppable controversy, and _definitely_ not part of her reality. That was her first mistake.  
  
Her reality, at that moment, was centered around the problem of finding holiday gifts for everyone on her list. By the time she and her mother neared the exit of the steaming, carol-saturated, abundantly colored Deerfield Mall, only half the names on her list were checked off. And the list, in all honesty, wasn't very long.  
  
I'll bring you back next weekend, Terri promised as the automatic door slid open. The crisp late afternoon had darkened into a relentlessly chilly, cloudy twilight that lay thick and close over the parking lot. An early snow had fallen just as they had pulled in hours earlier, and a small group of younger kids were trying unsuccessfully to form snowballs out of the scant dusting. The ones who had given up chose to fling handfuls of the powder at each other anyway. Hey, Leech, heads up! one of them called to the boy at the bottom of the front steps.  
  
Maybe you could invite Michelle to come with us. Kitty had been sure even then that this wasn't a suggestion, not quite an invitation, more like a request for assurance, for proof that she hadn't let her early days as a scar her for eternity, hadn't let her good grades and shyness keep her from forming the foundations of... a social life? Or was it more a matter of those all-important People Skills -- she'd heard those words used only a few times before; apparently they were something that it wasn't too late for her to learn -- that she could build on in high school, college, and the real world that was both hazy and fast approaching, every year one step closer, one more degree of anxiousness in adults' eyes, especially her parents'. _ Will she take the right classes, will she take them seriously, will she stay out of trouble, will she be happy, will she will she will she?_  
  
She wasn't really paying attention to what her mom was saying, was no longer as embarrassed as she had been about it being just the two of them, if she ever _really_ had been. She was pulling the sleeves of her pink sweater over her hands, not really thinking about anything all, which was part of the reason why she saw what she saw, when she saw it.  
  
The boy at the bottom of the front steps was hunched over the grate, the hood of his extra-extra-large jacket pulled tightly over his face, trying to stay warm. He was already curled as much into himself as was humanly possible, and when he saw them (or more likely heard their footsteps), he recoiled further, as if afraid of their touch. Was he one of their crowd, or just such a familiar fixture that they'd awarded him his own nickname? Either way, if he didn't want to join in, he didn't want to join in. She knew what that felt like.   
  
It took a brief lift of his head as he leapt out of the way, when a half-formed snowball came whizzing by it, to cause her to make the connection, if there really _was_ one, if she had actually had some idea of why he was here all alone even besides the obvious reasons, before she caught a glimpse of the features inside the hood.  
  
Green skin, green even in the orange streetlights.  
  
A flat, almost nonexistent nose.  
  
And bulging eyes that weren't even close to human.  
  
Although not quite to the point where she would be endlessly humiliated to be seen with her mother in the most active shopping area in town, Kitty credited herself with being too mature to run and grab Terri's hand as all logic ceased, and she was seized by a wild fear that was actually strengthened by the knowledge, or maybe for now just the belief, that she couldn't show that she had seen him, or that the sight of that face had sent her heart into double time and caused her throat to close up.  
  
But he _did_ know.  
  
Nothing had happened -- and had she really expected anything to? -- but the look on his face had given away that he had been seen, that he was used to reactions like hers, that he was probably used to much worse, since he was surprised when she hadn't done anything except turn away as fast as she could.   
  
_You didn't see that, the light was terrible, you've been dazzled by all the lame Christmas decorations, you're tired from walking around all day, you didn't see that, YOU DIDN'T SEE THAT. And if you did, so what? Suppose he was just some weirdo in a mask._ She came up with this explanation almost as soon as she was strapped safely into the passenger seat of her unsuspecting mother's Taurus, traveling as far away from those steps as possible. She couldn't explain her fear, not even to herself, so she put it all to the element of surprise. Even though Halloween had been over for the past few months, Kitty could personally attest to the fact that putting on a monster mask and scaring The Girls (two words that had once been spoken with disgust and scorn by boys her age and were now spoken with something that hovered between... well, between awe, curiosity, and fear) never got old, did it?  
  
And if he wasn't? Well, she knew what that meant, but the scared, astonished look in the green-skinned boy's -- in Leech's -- eyes didn't match up with the picture she'd always had in her head of what mutants were supposed to look like. Actually, now that she had actually seen one -- or thought maybe she had -- she could no longer _quite_ remember what that picture had been.  
  
The next time she entered the mall, he wasn't there. She never told anyone about what she'd seen, and although it certainly didn't _haunt_ her for long afterward, she did wonder what had happened to him, and she always remembered it as the first time she came face to face with one of _them_, just like she would probably never forget the first book she ever fell in love with (John Bellairs' _The House with a Clock In Its Walls_), her first birthday party planned by a classmate instead of that classmate's parents (fourth grade), and -- when or _if_ it finally happened -- her first kiss. But, like those other things, it wouldn't do much more than lurk in the back of her mind, filed away in a locked cabinet but easily retrieved, never completely lost.  
  
The holiday season, and the two after that, were as pleasant and fun as she'd expected.   
  
And she never gave any serious thought to the possibility that someday she might look in the mirror only to see a face that -- no matter how much it might resemble hers -- _wasn't_ her own. In fact, it never did more than occur to her.  
  
Not yet.   
  



End file.
